Introduction
by The Goliath Beetle
Summary: Being the new kid is always hard. But Ivan shouldn't have lied. Hopefully his new friends won't hate him for it. - Friendship fic, all of them are ten years old - Two-shot.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Immortal x Snow wanted to write something where Ivan was a cutiepie and so we made a challenge out of it.**

 **The prompt she gave me was "Introduction".**

 **This is Part I.**

 **They're all like 10 in this fic.**

* * *

"My name is…" Ivan swallowed a nervous squeak – be calm, be friendly, have fun – that's what his big sister Katyusha had advised. "Ivan Braginsky, and I'm from Moscow original." He closed his eyes in silent horror as a couple of kids in the front – especially a mean-looking blonde with a cowlick and glasses – giggled. Ivan's English was still a bit weak. "Moscow, originally," he corrected himself, speaking slowly and with forced steadiness.

The class was colourful in every sense of the word. He knew there would be children from all over; this was an international school. But nastiness was the same no matter where a person was from. The boy with large eyebrows wrinkled his nose at Ivan, in what the little Russian boy could only assume was distaste.

Ivan dropped his gaze before daring to lift it again. "Um, my father is – " _a diplomat, businessman, heir to the throne of Norway, something cool like that –_ "an advisor to the Russian government." Ivan had no idea how those words slipped out of his mouth; they weren't even slightly true. His father just owned a couple of bottle-making factories and they moved out of Russia for 'better prospects' – code for _Ivan, honey, daddy just has a lot of work in that country and the weather there doesn't agree with me_ _as much as it does him._ And that was code for, _mommy and daddy are getting a divorce because daddy's been having an affair with that foreign lady on his 'business trips', Ivan, you dimwit._ His younger sister Natalya had always been scathing and direct with her words.

So here Ivan was, with a new 'mother' and a new school. And in this school, everyone had parents who were either diplomats, rich businessmen or heirs to some fortune.

Still, that didn't mean Ivan had to lie, right?

But out poured more word vomit.

"My mother is related to the Dutch royal family. Um, and I like to play horse polo." His face was burning. "Thank you." And before anybody could say anything else, he dashed back to his seat, head bowed in shame.

They all bullied him at his old school. He was too tall, too broad, his hair too silver, his nose too big. Ivan knew he wasn't nice to look at – the other kids told him so in no uncertain terms. They would tease him endlessly for tending to his sunflower patch in the garden back home, or for being a colossal klutz on ice skates. He was hoping this new school would be a fresh start, but still, he didn't expect to lie. He just wanted to fit in.

The boy with the large eyebrows glanced at him all throughout class. Ivan could barely focus on his algebra questions. He just pretended not to notice and forced his gaze to his books. He didn't dare lift his head until class was over (his neck was hurting a little, but whatever.)

Math and then History passed easily. In the break, Ivan followed the rest of his classmates to the cafeteria, trying to make eye-contact with anybody who looked non-threatening. He hated eating alone, it was the worst.

Luckily, someone plopped down next to him with a food tray.

Unluckily, it was the boy with the big eyebrows.

"You're from the Dutch royal family?" he asked, raising those tremendous eyebrows. Ivan noticed the rich green tint to his eyes. "You said you're from Moscow. And Moscow is _not_ in the Netherlands. I should know, I got an A+ in Geography. Also, it's basic information."

Ivan didn't know he was gaping until the obnoxious one with the cowlick slid up to the bushy-eyed fellow on the bench, saying, "leave him alone, Arthur!" to Ivan, he added, "I'm Alfred. Your dad advises the _Russian government_? My dad says the Russian government is full of criminals! Is it true?"

Ivan could actually feel his heart beat in his ears. "Um…no…that's not true."

"Can I eat your pudding?" Alfred ploughed on, ignoring him as he reached forward and snatched Ivan's pudding cup off his tray. "Thank you!" Sitting back as he stuffed spoon after spoon of chocolate pudding in his face, Alfred went on, "so, how are you liking the new school? We're awesome, aren't we?"

"Stop saying _awesome_ like you're Gilbert!" Arthur chided.

Ivan forced a smile. Well, at least they were talking to him. "The new school is nice. Everyone is nice." English adjectives failed him again, so he repeated, "nice, nice," and fell into a humiliated silence.

His mood didn't improve by the time the bell rang again to signal the end of break.

His next class was English, taught by a certain Professor Matthew Williams, who gave Ivan an encouraging smile. "Would you like to come up to the front and introduce yourself, Ivan?" and then, perhaps sensing the horror on his face, quickly added, "unless you've already done so before, of course."

"I have," Ivan mumbled, lowering his eyes.

"Well, all right then." His eyes turned to Alfred instead, who kept pulling Elizabeta's – the Hungarian girl who'd looked at Ivan coldly a few minutes ago – hair. "Alfred, _please_ stop it!" his tone suggested that this was a regularly issued command.

They started discussing Tense. Arthur, in the front, groaned slightly, but Ivan was a bit relieved. He always confused Present Perfect and Present Continuous. English was so complicated, it was amazing he knew as much as he did. And he pretty much hated the Latin script; why did 'k' and 'c' have the same sound? When was he supposed to use which letter? How did 'Ph' make the 'fffff' sound? Ugh.

"Ivan, could you please answer question five for me?" Mr Williams requested, making Ivan's heart sink. Ivan stared at the textbook. But he was holding it too tightly and his eyes were watering. What was that giant word right at the beginning of the sentence? He had to figure out the tense for – "se-sus-"

He was crying and that was making him panic more, which meant more crying, which meant he couldn't kick-start his brain into reading the word.

"Sust-"

Some kids laughed. Mr Williams shushed them. "Come on, Ivan, you can do it. Break it up."

"Suste-"

"He's _crying_!" Alfred shrieked.

"Alfred, quiet down!" Matthew walked over to Ivan, patted him on the head and slowly read aloud, " _Sustainability._ " And then he pressed a tissue into Ivan's hands.

* * *

"How was school?" Katyusha asked when she picked him up.

Ivan sniffed. His eyes were dry but he still felt extremely weepy. And mortified, of course. "I hated it. And Mr Williams assigned me an English tutor!"

* * *

 **A/N: There's a part II to this. Also I don't know what this was. But I needed to write it, ahahaha.**

 **Thanks for reading. Please review :D**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: My computer crashed for like the 100** **th** **time and so I got a new laptop! I'm still trying to figure my way around it, hahaha. Anyway, the update :3**

* * *

"Are you Ivan Braginsky?"

The boy in front of him was Asian, with ponytailed dark hair that somehow the school had allowed. Ivan was instantly taken by his green t-shirt, which read, _Hello Kitty is a Secret Dragon_ , with the image of a kitten-eyed dragon printed next to it. Ivan grinned a little.

"Yes, I am."

The boy looked Ivan up and down. "You're tall. I'm Yao."

"Is Yao a synonym for short?"

The boy narrowed his eyes. "Your English really _does_ need help. Yao is my name."

Ivan felt like dying inside. "Oh…sorry."

The boy, Yao, smiled slightly. "It's my fault. I shouldn't have put it that way. Anyway, introductions? I'm from China, but we moved here because of my dad and his boring job. I'm in a grade above you. You're from Russia, right? Mr. Williams told me about you! He's nice, isn't he? By the way, I'm your assigned English tutor." And before Ivan could react to that, Yao leaned forward and conspiratorially whispered, "I used to suck, too."

Yao stayed close to him for the next ten minutes as he walked Ivan around the school, giving him an impromptu tour and gossiping away. "And those two, there – in the cafeteria? They're the Vargas twins. Feliciano is pretty friendly. Sorta dumb, but nice. Lovino is scary, but he knows a lot of really good bad words. So if you ever want someone to send a rude e-mail or text to someone, you should go to him. He _always_ helps."

Raising both eyebrows, Ivan asked, "you've done that?"

His new friend nodded sagely. "Yeah, he's in my class, so it was easy. I wanted to write my younger brother Kiku a mean birthday card. Lovino helped loads. And if you wanna make friends with them, just get them some free tomatoes. And _those guys_ –" gesturing to a trio of smirking boys, Yao grimaced, "they're in my class too. Antonio, Francis and Gilbert. They're just troublemakers. But they're friendly, I guess. I mean, they're awful but kinda nice, too, you know what I mean?"

Sure, but it wasn't like Ivan was going to rush up and talk to them. It was still all very overwhelming for him, and Yao was talking too quickly to keep up with everything he was saying. Still, it was nice to have someone be comfortable around him. At least he wasn't being bullied.

Once the classes resumed, the day went on uneventfully. Ivan didn't understand anything taught in History – there were too many large and bizarre words. He wrote them down to show Yao later: _rewolusion, uniun, bostin._ In English, Mr. Williams gave him a gentle smile and pulled him to the side.

"Are you doing okay, Ivan?"

In response, Ivan just nodded. It made his teacher frown just so slightly in concern and brush a persistent lock of his blonde hair out of his eyes. Straightening his glasses, he just sighed.

"You know you can talk to me any time if you need any help. Or you can go to Mr. Laurinaitis, he's the school counsellor. But don't be shy to ask for help, okay? Stop me any time in class if you have a question. Yeah?"

Ivan just nodded some more.

After school he went up to Yao with four pages full of questions and Yao took him to the library and issued a dictionary. "Go home and buy one of these. And keep it with you at all times. It helps, it really helps."

They worked together for an hour, perfecting pronunciation and understanding spelling. Only when they were walking out to the school yard, where Katyusha was waiting, Yao asked, "you're not really related to the Dutch royal family, are you?"

Ivan bit his bottom lip. "I mean…uh…no?" He tilted his head to the side and glanced towards Yao, trying to gauge just how disgusted his new friend was with him.

But Yao just laughed. "And I bet your dad doesn't advise the Russian government, either?"

"He owns a few bottle-making factories."

Covering his face, Yao kept snickering. Ivan felt his eyes burn, but he bit his bottom lip to avoid crying. Still snickering slightly, Yao managed to say, "that's much more believable than what I did. I told the whole class my dad was an elite trainer of Chinese dragons."

" _What_?"

Yao burst out laughing again. "But I was six years old when this happened so my classmates actually believed me."

And this time, Ivan laughed too.

* * *

 **A/N: I planned this whole thing out where he and Arthur and Alfred become friends and I wrote like 3 versions but they all suck, so I'm sorry.**

 **Conclusion: everyone becomes friends in the end even though GB hasn't written it in the fic.**

 **This is kinda a complete ending in itself though, right? Ugh, I hate myself right now… D:**


End file.
